LANL: The Real Story

ROGER SNODGRASS, roger@lamonitor.com, Monitor Assistant Editor

Sen. Pete Domenici expressed concerns Thursday about spending reductions in environmental clean-up programs at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Domenici, who chairs the Senate Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee, took advantage of an FY2007 budget review hearing in Washington to call attention to a $762 million shortfall in the Department of Energy's clean-up program.

He said the reductions were problematic to existing clean-up agreements for Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Domenici asked DOE officials to explain how the recommendation to cut $70 million from environmental cleanup would affect projects at Los Alamos and its legal obligations with the state government.

[...]

Full Story

By PHILLIP GOMEZ
PVT


The Nevada Test Site's principal management and operations contractor for the past 11 years, Bechtel Nevada Corp., will no longer be in the driver's seat after July 1. The decision is expected to affect a small number of Bechtel employees living in Las Vegas, Henderson, North Las Vegas and the more than 200 who live in Pahrump.

The Department of Energy's semi-autonomous agency, the National Nuclear Security Administration, announced earlier this week the selection of National Security Technologies LLC, to replace Bechtel.


[...]


Full Story

An anonymous bit just received: three of the top managers at the new Northrup Grumman-run NTS will be Steve Younger, Jim Holt, and Ping Lee. Those names sound oddly familiar.

ROGER SNODGRASS, roger@lamonitor.com, Monitor Assistant Editor

SANTA FE - Environmental stewardship at Los Alamos National Laboratory will be severely constrained over the next two years unless something can be done about funding cuts and budget plans that threaten to cripple the program, according to local officials.

Possible consequences include unmet land transfer commitments from DOE to the county, broken agreements under the consent order with the state of New Mexico and reduced groundwater monitoring at a time of heightened concern over laboratory contamination in the regional aquifer.

The unpleasant prospects were delivered Wednesday night at a meeting of the Northern New Mexico Citizen's Advisory Board at Santa Fe College.

"It appears to be a bad situation," said Ed Wilmott, manager of the Los Alamos Site Office, who said efforts were underway to reverse the budget decisions in Washington, D.C.

[...]

Full Story

FYI, here is a graph of the hit rates to date for the entire duration of this blog. The series of left-most peaks reflect when the articles about the blog were published in the New York Times. The next tall peak was when the Tommy Hook affair happened. The tallest peak around Dec 27 was the day the winner of the new contract was announced.

I thought some of you might find it interesting.

--Doug

Nukes for a Profit

Privatizing the Apocalypse

By FRIDA BERRIGAN

Started as the super-secret "Project Y" in 1943, the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico has long been the keystone institution of the American nuclear-weapons producing complex. It was the birthplace of Fat Man and Little Boy, the two nuclear bombs the U.S. dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. Last year, the University of California, which has managed the lab for the Department of Energy since its inception, decided to put Los Alamos on the auction block. In December 2005, construction giant Bechtel won a $553 million yearly management contract to run the sprawling complex, which employs more than 13,000 people and has an estimated $2.2 billion annual budget.

"Privatization" has been in the news ever since George W. Bush became president. His administration has radically reduced the size of government, turning over to private companies critical governmental functions involving prisons, schools, water, welfare, Medicare, and utilities as well as war-fighting, and is always pushing for more of the same. Outside of Washington, the pitfalls of privatization are on permanent display in Iraq, where companies like Halliburton have reaped billions in contracts. Performing jobs once carried out by members of the military -- from base building and mail delivery to food service -- they have bilked the government while undermining the safety of American forces by providing substandard services and products. Halliburton has been joined by a cottage industry of military-support companies responsible for everything from transportation to interrogation. On the war front, private companies are ubiquitous, increasingly indispensable, and largely unregulated -- a lethal combination.

[...]

Full Story

The LA-UR-05-9307 Post

There have been so many people downloading this paper from my web server over the past two days that on several occasions it was necessary for me to shut the server down, because all of my bandwidth was being taken up by downloads, not leaving me enough for my Vonage (voice over IP) phone calls.

In my opinion, this paper provides some of the most valuable information that has been served by this blog, in that it provides a true history of recent events at Los Alamos. Why is this valuable? Because it provides much-needed balance to the often completely dishonest versions of these same recent events as they were put forth by the LANL Public Affairs Office.

It used to be that history was written by the victors. I do not believe that this is the case any longer. As long as there are people willing to take the time and spend the effort required capture historical events, truthfully, as they happen, then the historical facts are not lost.

--Doug

Submitted by Anonymous:
______________________________

Doug,
Please place the following question anonymously. Thanks.

Question:
At the LANL Benefits presentations yesterday I learned from someone in the
audience that you could transfer to LANS as an inactive vested UCRS
employee, then take the lump sum cash out from UCRS after the transfer and
still be able to retire with full medical and dental benefits under LANS.
If so, this represents an improvement over what you're allowed to do under
UCRS, i.e. if you lump out under UCRS you forgo your retirement medical.
Does anyone know if this "loophole" in the LANS tranfer is for real?

From the LANL NewsBulletin:

March 29, 2006

aboratory Director Bob Kuckuck will speak to Laboratory employees at 1:15 this afternoon from the Administration Building Auditorium at Technical Area 3.

Kuckuck will talk about child care, safety incidents during his tenure and management's response to the incidents. Kuckuck also will pass along any additional information he might have concerning the Los Alamos National Security, LLC transition.

The meeting also can be watched on LABNET Channel 9 and on desktop computers using Real Media and IPTV technology. Uncleared employees can watch the talk in the Physics Building Auditorium also at TA-3. Standard escorting rules apply for admittance to the Administration Building. Uncleared individuals and their escorts should sit in the designated area of the auditorium.

For more information, see the all-employee memo (Adobe Acrobat Reader required).

By John Arnold
Journal Staff Writer
A former Los Alamos National Laboratory employee says he was fired after less than a year on the job for raising concerns about toxic chemical storage and inadequate safety procedures.
In one case, a procedural lapse "probably contributed to permanent medical injury," according to a lawsuit filed initially in state District Court and recently transferred to federal court.
Dr. Douglas J. Chadbourne, who was an occupational medicine physician at the lab, is suing LANL and his supervisors for "retaliatory conduct" in violation of his civil rights.

[...]

Full Story

Today: March 28, 2006 at 16:27:37 PST

Feds dump Bechtel for Nevada Test Site management contract

ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Energy Department on Tuesday picked a corporate group led by Northrop Grumman to manage the Nevada Test Site, rejecting a bid from Bechtel Corp., which has held the contract for 10 years.

A spokesman for DOE's National Nuclear Security Administration declined to say why National Security Technologies, LLC, was chosen over Bechtel for the five-year contract worth $500 million per year. The site is a 1,375-square-mile area where nuclear weapons used to be tested and is now used for testing conventional weapons, emergency response training and other purposes.

[...]

Full Story

Hi Doug,

A colleague wrote the attached for an MBA degree course he is
enrolled in. (He's a good nuclear physicist in real life). I think it
has an interesting perspective on recent goings-on at LANL and
thought others might be interested. Would there be any interest in
posting this on the LANL blog? It's already been cleared for
distribution.

Cheers,


___________________________________________-

1. Introduction

My reason for this paper is summed up in the following quote1 from the LANL Newsbulletin’s
Reader’s Forum early in 2005, which refers to events around the Laboratory shutdown
in the summer of 2004:

Few employees know even the basic facts that led to the shutdown, and almost none know the
thinking behind the decisions made at the time. Even worse, there has been little discussion
about how the events may have been related to others over the last 15–20 years or how those
problems will be perceived and dealt with by a new contractor. Instead, the advice from our
leadership, as represented by a comment made by Senator Pete Domenici, has been “Get over
it.” Although many employees would be happy to put the events of the last decade behind
them, others such as the writer above are still looking for some understanding that would
make such closure easier. Given the schedule for announcing the new contractor, the last
weeks of 2005 may be the last opportunity

[...]

Full Paper

Submitted by Anonymous:
_____________________________________

Response from Senator Bingaman regarding the unresolved issue of the proposed UCRP clone, our forced decision regarding LANS pension plans, and "substantially equivalency" follows. Do not give up: keep writing DOE/NNSA, LANS, UC and your elected representatives; take legal action.

Thank you for contacting me regarding the proposed pension plan for Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) employees and retirees. I appreciate your taking the time to share your concerns with me.

I understand your concerns with the proposed pension plan for LANL employees and retirees. As you know, Senator Domenici and I wrote a letter to Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman urging him to reject the request made by the University of California Board of Regents to segregate and spin off liabilities and assets. As of this time, I have not received a response from the UC Board of Regents regarding my concerns. I am aware that many employees and retirees still have serious questions about their retirement benefits, and from my perspective, the generic statement from the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) that the LANS package is "substantially equivalent" is insufficient to address those questions or provide them with confidence. For this reason, I have consistently urged NNSA and LANS to address these concerns before finalizing the package. Please be assured that I will continue my advocacy for LANL employees and retirees as I monitor any new developments in this transition process.

Arizona newsmaker

Nothing at all to do with LANL, but involving Los Alamos.

Related SlashDot article: http://hardware.slashdot.org/hardware/06/03/25/1411250.shtml
___________________________________________________

Submitted by Anonymous:
_____________________________

I understand that the LANS contractual commitment for "substantially
equivalent" benefits, i.e., the TCP1 package, is only required by
the RFP for a year.

Is this true? If so, vested LANL employees will be taking a very
large and completely undefined risk in taking TCP1. The age and
service factors could be substantially reduced and/or (eventually)
the defined benefit portion could be deleted entirely. TCP1 could
morph fairly quickly to TCP2.

So, is there a contractual limit on the duration of substantially
equivalent benefits"?

Staff and wire reports

SANTA FE - A nuclear watchdog group has gone to court to try to get 10-year site plans covering Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Nuclear Watch New Mexico wants the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Nuclear Security Administration to turn over information sought under the federal Freedom of Information Act - the site plans for the years 2003 through 2006.

The Santa Fe group said such plans contain important information on the direction of the federal nuclear weapons lab, but a spokesman for the federal agencies said the matter is one of national security.

Such documents typically include plans for new buildings and production of plutonium pits, the triggers for nuclear warheads, Nuclear Watch director Jay Coghlan said.

[...]

Full Story

Doug,

Anon post please:
________________________________

"If you do nothing before April 14"

1) There are two dates discussed in regards vacation cashout: April 14 and March 31

2) Payroll told me that March 31 is a hard deadline for electing to defer
vacation cash-out to your 457b plan. If you do so after that date,
e.g. between March 31 and April 14, then it will not go through as 457b and it
will get cashed out. Johnson's memo seemed ambiguous (to me): it highlighted
the April 14 date, mentioned the March 31 date, but then referred to
contributions for the months of March and April as if perhaps that's all that
would be lost if you elected to defer cashout to the 457b plan after March 31
but before April 14.
To be clear: I was told that deferral to the 457b needs to be done before March 31, period.

3) It was later clarified by Johnson that if you don't cashout now, but apply
vacation to LANS, that if you later decide not to be a LANS employee then it
will be cashed out for you.

4) Lastly, I was told that the accrual of vacation for the months of April
and May is transferred to LANS as vacation, i.e. you start with whatever
vacation you would accrue in two months, and not with 0 vacation days if you
elect to cashout or defer and not transfer vacation as vacation.

SPSE E-Bulletin Number Eighty-Four
Jim Wolford, Editor
Send e-mail messages to editor - c/o spse@spse.org

CONTENTS:

o Report on SPSE and UPTE Lobbying on Capitol Hill for a LLNL RFP that Preserves Employee Rights and Retirement

* * * * * *

Former SPSE President Jeff Colvin was part of a four-person UPTE lobbying team that spent three days on Capitol Hill last week in conjunction with the annual CWA Legislative Conference. Along with Manny Trujillo of LANL, Jelger Kalmijn of UCSD, and Rodney Orr of UCSB, Colvin visited several Congressional offices, as well as DOE HQ. The UPTE team was asking that Congress:

-- delay or slow down the transition to the new corporate contractor at LANL to allow employees more time to understand and decide among their options for retirement plans, particularly since numerous questions remain as to whether the new contractor's site-specific pension plan is really "substantially equivalent" to UCRP as was required in the LANL Request for Proposals (RFP);

-- pressure DOE to write a different RFP for the LLNL management contract, so that LLNL employees will not have to face the same dreary choice between retaining their vested interest in UCRS and retaining their employment, and will not have to face being converted to "at-will" status.

Here's how Colvin summarizes the three major accomplishments of the trip:

1. We got agreement on concerted and cooperative effort on our issues from both Senators from both states (California and New Mexico), as well as from the key legislators in both parties in the House. In fact, by the time we showed up at Senator Feinstein's (D-CA) office in the afternoon of the second day, the key staffer there had already talked to the Legislative Director from Senator Bingaman's (D-NM) office with whom we had talked the day before. All the legislators are now working together on our behalf.

2. We spent two hours with Tyler Przbylek, the DOE official who is the decision authority on the LLNL contract bidding. He conceded that the LLNL RFP does not have to be identical to the LANL RFP, and expressed interest in finding some way to accommodate our concerns in the LLNL RFP.

3. After much discussion, and an hour-long meeting with the CWA legal staff, we decided to file a lawsuit, and seek immediate injunctive relief, to stop the LANL transition. UPTE's attorneys advise us that the choice being offered LANL employees in the transition may violate as many as three federal laws. We informed all the officials we visited in DC, including Mr. Przbylek, that we would possibly be taking this action. UPTE will hold a news conference at the time the suit is filed, probably in the next couple of weeks.

We welcome your comments on this activity. Please direct all feedback to spse@spse.org.


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Board Hails Safety Gains At LANL
BY JOHN ARNOLD Journal Staff Writer

(Publication:Journal Santa Fe Section; Date:Mar 23, 2006; Section:Front Page; Page Number:1)

LOS ALAMOS — A federal safety oversight board on Wednesday praised safety improvements at Los Alamos National Laboratory following a lab shutdown in 2004.

But members of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board also questioned the sustainability of new safety initiatives as a new manager prepares to take over LANL operations.

And a board staff member expressed concerns about recent federal investigations into safety lapses that faulted some of the same underlying problems that led to the 2004 shutdown.

The DNFSB was in Los Alamos to hear from the current and incoming lab directors and National Nuclear Security Administration officials on the status of safety programs at the lab, as well as plans for ensuring safe operations in the future.

“The sustainability (of safety programs) is a concern — not lapsing back into old practices, old ways,” said board member Joseph Bader.

A new company called Los Alamos National Security will take over lab management June 1.

The head of the U.S. Department of Energy’s NNSA, which funds and oversees lab operations, told the board that the new contract provides a financial incentive for safety improvements.

“Los Alamos National Security has the potential to earn nearly a half billion dollars in fees over the next seven years,” NNSA Administrator Linton Brooks said. “In return, I expect them to provide dramatic improvement in internal operations, including safety. And I expect that improved performance to happen immediately.”

Current lab director Robert Kuckuck said he has seen marked improvement in safety at the lab since he came on board 10 months ago.

He praised lab workers for taking the initiative to make their work environments safer, pointing to a recent incident in which a lab technician was briefly exposed to acid while working alone in the lab. The worker was not injured, but reported to her supervisor that she was exposed because she had not followed lab procedures.

Kuckuck views that as a sign that employees are taking safety more seriously.

“Because this laboratory has been under siege. It’s been under fear, and speaking up has not been something people have done readily,” Kuckuck said. “And yet, she came in and spoke up.”

But DNFSB technical director Kent Fortenberry questioned why recent federal investigations found some of the same underlying problems that preceded the 2004 lab shutdown. For example, a DOE investigation into a July 2005 contamination accident that spread radioactive americium-241 off lab property faulted lax safety controls and “a significant level of complacency.”

NNSA’s Los Alamos site office manager, Ed Wilmot, acknowledged there is work to be done.

“It just takes time to change individual attitudes,” he said.

-----

[Interim Director Kuckuck can take considerable satisfaction in his sane approach to re-establishing an atmosphere of calm at the Laboratory after the previous Director's benighted shutdown in 2004. Removing the abusive climate of fear and intimidation is the first step on the way to recovery from Nanos' actions. An institution like LANL, with some 10,000 employees, some of which carry out very dangerous activities with dangerous materials, will never achieve--honestly--zero instances of safety missteps (or security, or accounting, for that matter) in the course of a year. Yet the "half billion dollars in fees over the next seven years" that Linton Brooks touts as a reason for expecting "dramatic improvement" in safety practices--"immediately," no less--from Bechtel (LANS) must be monitored closely, so that they aren't just part of a corporate, glossy-brochure, coverup. -Editor.]

Letter from the 3/23/2006 LANL NewsBulletin:
__________________________________________

March 21, 2006

Lack of LANS board home purchases in Los Alamos

I have heard a rumor going around (maybe someone else can verify it) that most of the Los Alamos National Security, LLC executive team will be living in Santa Fe rather than Los Alamos. (I don't know the exact numbers, but that would probably be very telling to hear.) I certainly do not begrudge my coworkers who have made that decision. However, I think the message it sends from the executive team is that they really don't care about the average Los Alamos-based worker and what it is like to live in this town. I am sure their spouses, especially if they aren't going to work for the Lab, would probably prefer to live in more of a city environment like Santa Fe. Welcome to the club.

There are decisions made at the Lab that significantly impact life here in town. If you doubt that, just consider the impact that the new security posts will have, closing off access to the ski hill and the Jemez. By not living in this town, how could they possibly know what impacts their decisions will have on the community? They certainly won't have to live with the ramifications.

If this wasn't such a company town, this wouldn't be that big of a deal to me. However, I think this sends a message of indifference on the part of the Lab executive team for the community life of our little town. I believe it was Machiavelli who stated that the best way to lead your people is by living with them so you get to know and understand them. I am disappointed ... I guess I just expected better [from] our new management team.

--Clair Sullivan

Submitted by Anonymous:
__________________________________--

Bechtel Cited For Safety Violations on Hanford Waste Treatment Plant

The Energy Daily
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
Adding to the woes of the already troubled project, the Energy Department last week proposed a $198,000 fine against Bechtel National Inc. for multiple safety violations in the development of the massive high-level radioactive waste treatment plant that the contractor is building at DOE’s Hanford site in eastern Washington.

The preliminary notice of violation cited a host of violations

occurring over the period between May 2002 and September 2005 that contributed to major delays in the multi-billion-dollar project, which has been struggling to resolve questions about its structural integrity and ability to withstand projected earthquakes, among other issues.

DOE

said the violations at the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP) include failure to abide by design codes documented in facility safety requirements; failure to abide by inspection requirements for radioactive waste processing vessels; failure to utilize correct suppliers to fabricate certain components; and calculation errors resulting in inconsistencies in structural steel design requirements.

The department said the proposed penalty could have been as large as $330,000, but was reduced due to aggressive corrective actions taken by Bechtel to prevent recurrence of the problems.

In particular, DOE officials praised Bechtel’s forthright acknowledge-ment that many of the safety violations resulted from a "less than adequate nuclear safety and quality culture" among WTP employees.

"It is our belief that if this broader issue is not fully addressed, similar weaknesses will likely manifest themselves in almost every other area of your operations," said Stephen Sohinki, director of DOE’s Office of Price-Anderson Enforcement, in a March 16 letter to Jim Henschel, Bechtel’s WTP project director, detailing the safety violations.

Sohinki noted that at a February 7 conference with Bechtel on the safety violations, the contractor said that its initiatives to improve the safety and quality culture would be fully implemented by June.

However, Sohinki said that, "recognizing that significant improvement in nuclear safety culture at WTP will take time," DOE officials view Bechtel’s initiatives as simply a first step in the process to bring about improved safety practices on the project.

Consequently, Sohinki said his office wanted to meet with Bechtel sometime in June to check on progress and see what further steps should be taken to improve the safety culture. "At that meeting, you should be prepared to discuss compensatory actions taken and planned to assure that work can continue to be done safely while the acknowledged safety culture issues at WTP are addressed," he said.

While blaming Bechtel for poor safety culture, the DOE safety citation also indirectly acknowledged that the department’s effort to fast-track the design and construction of the first-of-its-kind WTP project contributed to the safety issues. Notably, Bechtel was cited for "schedule pressure-induced violations," where Bechtel engineers cut corners on documentation in order to meet schedule milestones set by DOE.

# posted by Doug Roberts : 3/22/2006 06:47:00 PM  2 comments